Mated to the Beast of the Wasteland novel Chapter 46

Chapter 46 Shaven Bare

Chapter 46 Shaven Bare

Who dared to hurt him? He was a Lawson.

It hurt, goddamnit!

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His tough talk lasted barely three seconds. Wave after wave of pain crashed through him, and Tristan wanted to scream curses.

His eyelids stayed shut, pale and stubborn, while his eyes rolled wildly beneath them.

“Captain Sterling really makes the difference. Look how cleanly she’s pulling the taint out of the tissue.”

“Yeah, the healing alloy can’t reach that deep.”

Tristan’s hearing came back to him slowly.

Captain Sterling? That was Gillian?

Was she really being that kind, clearing the taint out of him?

Every word they spoke seemed to be matched by another stab of pain through him, and he let out a long, pitiful fox whine.

Was she planning to quietly finish him off here?

Tristan tried to struggle, to get away from her blade.

Lucian, Sylas, somebody…

That vicious girl was never going to let him out alive.

What felt to him like a violent thrashing was, in reality, just a slightly stronger rise and fall of

his chest.

“Look at that. The little fox is bouncing back.”

A bone-deep helplessness washed over Tristan, the kind that left him unable to lift a paw.

He wasn’t getting better. He was being tortured to death.

Then all at once, warmth wrapped around him like sunlight on a clear morning.

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Chapter 46 Shaven Bare

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A gentle current of psionic power flowed in from every direction, washing his bones clean and pulling the filth out of his flesh.

The trembling pain finally eased, and that soft warmth lulled him completely under.

Gillian wrapped up the entire taint-purging procedure on the white fox in just under 10

minutes.

The procedure had gone flawlessly.

There had been no major bleeding and nothing missed.

Even the white fox, who’d been hanging by a thread, was breathing normally again.

“Tristan made it.”

The medics traded looks tinged with leftover dread. A few minutes ago, they’d practically had the fox flayed open.

His blood had been almost fully replaced by now, and the fact that he’d still pulled through was nothing short of a miracle.

What they didn’t know was that the thing keeping Tristan alive from start to finish was Gillian’s unique healing psionic power.

If a cleric with only purification ability had taken the case, Tristan would have died a thousand times over by now.

“If he hadn’t pulled through, he would have drained me dry. One billion still wouldn’t have been enough.”

Gillian wasn’t exaggerating. She’d been thorough earlier, letting the taint spread into Tristan’s chest and limbs on purpose.

The whole point had been to stop Tristan from buying his way out of the wasteland and surviving.

Killing was always faster than saving.

“Captain Sterling, you talk tough, but you’ve got a soft heart.”

A genuine smile broke across Sylas’ face. “The commander and the captain are going to be really happy when they hear this.”

Sylas didn’t have many friends, and Tristan was one of them. The kid wasn’t bad at heart. He

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Chapter 46 Shaven Bare

just had a rich boy’s temper.

Gillian only made a vague sound of acknowledgement.

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Sylas had been heading for the door when something felt off. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gillian wasn’t following. She was shaving the fox?

His step faltered, and one of his eyebrows climbed up.

“Captain Sterling, what are you doing?”

A brilliant smile lit Gillian’s face. “Prepping the skin.”

Sylas had no words.

The cutting was done. The surgical areas had already been prepped. So what skin exactly was she prepping now?

Gillian admired her own handiwork with a satisfied grin.

The white fox had been shaved nearly clean. Only his face, his four paws, and a tiny puff at the tip of his tail still had fur.

He didn’t even look like a fox anymore.

He looked more like a shaved meatball.

“I gotta say, my technique’s pretty solid. Don’t you think, Captain Moore?”

Her eyes shone with playful mischief, and she sounded like she was bragging to a friend about pulling off something genuinely impressive.

This version of Gillian had none of the brisk, composed professional from earlier in the day.

Instead, she’d taken on a young, bright energy that was hard to look away from.

It was the first time Sylas really registered that she was only 20, and that she could be ridiculously childish.

“Sylas?”

“Hm?”

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